The present invention relates to apparatus and methods for establishing, checking and displaying information relating to travellers, the baggage in their charge, and the location of travellers and their baggage in relation to a vehicle in which they are to travel.
In loading baggage on to vehicles, especially aircraft, two of the problems which occur are ensuring that bags are loaded on to aircraft which are travelling to the correct destination and ensuring that only bags with accompanying passengers travel in a particular aircraft (except where bags are specially authorised to travel unaccompanied). Solving the first of these problems reduces the quite considerable amount of baggage which at present travels to the wrong destination and solving the second of these problems provides a higher degree of airline safety.
Some of the information for checking and reconciling baggage is already collected in airline systems at check-in but usually the main frame computer operated by, or on behalf of, an airline is in an entirely different location, often in another continent, from the check-in so causing problems with time delays in transferring data and receiving computed outputs, especially when breakdowns occur.
Any baggage reconciliation system has to deal not only with direct point to point transfer where passengers and their baggage travel direct from one location to another but also inter-line transfer where a passenger initially checks in for one flight but changes to another at an intermediate stop before arriving at the final destination. In addition there are several special categories of bags, known as "expedite bags" which are conveyed without any corresponding passenger and these bags are also known as "rush bags" which have to be loaded without an accompanying passenger because the bag arrives too late, or has been previously lost or delayed. In addition "crew bags" belonging to crew members are not always checked in.
Thus there exists a need for apparatus and methods which overcome or at least ameliorate some or all of the problems mentioned above.